As the size of agricultural implements continues to grow, the versatility of such implements becomes more significant. Large air seeders have become increasingly popular for the planting of seeds, fertilizer, and other product without strict regard for the exact placement of the seeds particles. For crop planting operations that require seed singulation, nurse systems are used to feed seed or other particles from larger hoppers into smaller reservoirs located at the singulation meters. A nurse inductor system enables an air cart typically used for dryland farming (cereal crops, etc.), to be adapted for use in row crop planting applications, such as corn and soybean, though not limited to soybean and corn. A nurse inductor system along with a central fill hopper can be used to enable a farmer to plant more acres before having to stop to fill the planter, resulting in quicker planting and less labor, while maintaining the precision spacing available by on-row singulation.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,473, a nurse system is disclosed which works off a specialized cart. The air comes into the seed delivery area coaxial with the seed tube that takes the air and seed to the row units. With this system substantial energy is used to nurse the seed since the air changes direction abruptly. This particular nurse system provides a dedicated fan to feed the 12 rows to be planted from the nurse system. This system requires the adding or removing of shims to adjust for different line length, which is difficult and inconvenient to accomplish.
In September, 2002, Deere and Company introduced a planter with a central nurse system configured with one line to fill on-row mini-hoppers. The planter has a 12/23 row configuration, thus, when planting 12 rows, 13 of the rows must be plugged at the mini-hoppers. To plug the mini-hoppers, a special plug is placed in the non-active lines. However, these removable plugs must be stored by the operator when not in use, and can be easily lost or misplaced.
Another example of a nurse system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,102 to Kongskilde. This nurse system distributes grain from a central hopper to a number of smaller hoppers. A metering device on each small hopper delivers to a number of seed boots. In this particular system, the operator is able to shut off one of the meter rollers independent of the other meter rollers, and is therefore able to stop the rotation of one section on the roller independent of the others. However, this system does not permit the operator to shut off the delivery to any of the nurse lines independently. U.S. Pat. No. 4,060,181, U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,652, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,067 teach other nurse embodiments with varying problems.
It is therefore desirable to provide a nurse inductor system that overcomes the disadvantages of the known prior art.